Become your own PR guru - She Business

Last week we talked about generating PR to garner positive media coverage for your business.

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Public relations requires a delicate balance: investment is low and rewards are high but poorly-handled PR can be disastrous for your business. While the coverage is free, journalists are at liberty to edit your story and editorial approval is rarely part of the deal.

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PR is often seen as the great panacea for marketing your small business but PR takes time, commitment and planning. To be successful in the media, you need to develop relationships with journalists, editors and producers, just like you do with customers, suppliers and colleagues.

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Networking, finding out ?who?s who in the zoo?, building relationships with relevant journos; it can take weeks, months and years to establish relationships with the ?right? contacts for your business.

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Beyond networking and making contacts, PR can be generated by establishing yourself as the go-to expert in your chosen field (just look at the number of guest speaking spots Suzy secures each year). While this is easier than ever in the world of social media, committing to a writing a blog article every week and making it interesting for your followers takes time that many small business owners simply don?t have.

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And while you could hire a PR company to handle your public relations but the exorbitant cost is outside the budget of most small businesses.

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So, how do you become your own PR guru?

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Now you have your tailored media release ready to go, take some time to research who?s who in your industry. Make a spreadsheet of publications/media outlets, relevant editors and sub editors as well as specialised journalists within publications. Speaking to the right person can make or break coverage.

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Successful PR is a long-term project, no matter how large the audience, one article or appearance is unlikely to give your business a long-term boost. It takes planning: include PR in your business plan and highlight milestones and events that can be leveraged for media coverage.

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Audiences are all about ?what?s in it for me?? Plan your pitch and who it is relevant to; make it less about you and more about what you can do for the journalist and their audience.

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Successful, rewarding PR is possible as long as you?re not always looking for immediate results. As with any project that relies on relationship-building: think strategic and long-term.

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If you?re prepared to invest the time PR can be highly rewarding for your business but be prepared to carefully evaluate if your time and money is better spent marketing your business in other ways.

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Source: http://www.shebusiness.com/2012/08/become-your-own-pr-guru/

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